After the Revolution, we meet with a case in which moral discipline was exercised by Patrick, Bishop of Ely. The Incumbent of Great Eversden had, by intemperance, drowned his reason and scandalized his profession. Grieved at what he heard, the Bishop required him to preach two penitential sermons, one in each of the churches where he officiated, from the words, “He that covereth his sins shall not prosper; but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy.” He did so, and concluded with the words: “You see, beloved, what a black indictment I have here drawn up against myself, wherein I have not been favourable or partial to my fatal miscarriages, but have dissected and ripped up my many enormous crimes, and exposed them to public view. I beseech you not to be too censorious and uncharitable, since I have passed so severe a censure upon myself.”[407] [Sidenote: WORSHIP.] A passing remark is required touching the manner of worship. Nothing like what is now called Ritualism had then any existence. Things continued much as they were before. No coloured vestments were worn by Anglicans either within or without the Establishment, nor were there any attempts at extraordinary ornamentation of either altars or churches. Æsthetic culture, apart from distinctive ecclesiastical opinions, may powerfully affect psalmody, and other accompaniments of devotion, as well as the structure and adornment of the House of God; but the reign of William was not at all an age in which such culture prevailed. Some religious people have a keen sense of propriety as to outward observances; others have none. It matters not to them, though the adoration of the High and Lofty One be marked by slovenliness of arrangement and irreverence of behaviour. There were many persons of this kind amongst Clergy and laity during the last ten, as there had been during the previous fifty years of the seventeenth century. The use of the surplice in the pulpit, now a common practice with almost all sections in the Established Church, was within our own recollection very rare, and when first prominently introduced, produced excitement and confusion. It seems to have been a novelty in the reign of William III. “Yesterday,” says the writer of a letter in 1696, “I saw in Low Leighton Church, that which to my remembrance I never did see in a church in England but once, and that is a minister preach in a surplice for Mr. Harrison (whereas other ministers on Fast-days do not so much as wear any surplice), he, by way of supererogation, preached in his. The sight did stir up in me more of pity than anger to see the folly of the man; but if he preach in a fool’s coat we will go and hear him.”[408]